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LONDON, Ont. — The race to lead the Ontario Tories is down to a two-way battle with a month to go after the only entrant from the party’s Southwestern Ontario’s power base, MPP Monte McNaughton, dropped out.

McNaughton threw his support Thursday behind Barrie Conservative MP Patrick Brown, a fellow social conservative, saying the federal politician is the kind of change the Tories need.

“I’m tired of seeing the same-old, same-old people running our party — that’s why we haven’t won an election since 1999,” McNaughton, the Lambton-Kent-Middlesex MPP, said.

The other candidate left standing is Oshawa-area MPP Christine Elliott, widely seen as a more moderate conservative.

Brown has mounted a formidable campaign signing up new members and adds momentum with McNaughton’s backing.

But Elliott led in a recent Forum Research poll that suggested she was the top choice in a then three-way field among Ontarians generally, PC supporters and paid-up party members.

If Elliott wins, Ontario’s Big Three parties would all be headed by women for the first time.

If Brown triumphs, it would be the first time a caucus outsider has taken the Ontario PC reins since John Tory in 2004.

Thursday, in the wake of McNaughton’s withdrawal, the sprint to the finish intensified.

Brown, in a statement, said the choice for PCs is between the old and “a fresh start to rebuild our party.”

Elliott said the party can opt for her “positive, pragmatic and truly Progressive Conservative vision,” or Brown, whom she called “an untested candidate with nothing more to offer than a life lived as a career politician.”

Two candidates earlier withdrew from the race, MPPs Vic Fideli of North Bay and Ottawa’s Lisa McLeod. Both backed Elliott.

Like McNaughton, Brown is considered a social conservative, supporting traditional marriage and voting for a motion to reopen the abortion-related issue of when life begins.

He’s also joined McNaughton in criticizing Ontario’s new sex-education curriculum.

But McNaughton said he “doesn’t like labels” and believes Brown, a former civic politician first elected at age 22, brought a “pragmatic approach” to the campaign, signing up 41,000 new members.

The leadership race was triggered by the Tories’ second straight loss to the Liberals in last summer’s election, when Kathleen Wynne converted a minority Liberal government bogged down by high-deficit budgets and scandals into a 59-seat majority.

The Tories were reduced to 28 seats, many in rural areas, without the big-city and urban breakthroughs needed to win power.

A three-term MP, Brown was a relative unknown on the provincial scene before the race began.

McNaughton’s campaign recently ran into controversy in the legislature when he went after Wynne on the sex-ed curriculum.

“It’s not the premier of Ontario’s job, especially Kathleen Wynne, to tell parents what’s age-appropriate for their children,” he said.

Wynne, the first openly gay premier in Canada, denounced the remark as homophobic.